Variety reports on two new Todd Haynes projects: a Velvet Underground documentary, and an Amazon limited series that will "“re-examine a figure who maybe we forget how radical they were in their thinking because they were so incorporated into our culture and outlook as a modern society."

Haynes doesn't say who the subject of the Amazon series is, but when I saw him at a Q&A for I'm Not There back in 2008, someone asked him what his next film would be about and he said (in an admittedly somewhat joking tone, and I'm paraphrasing here), "Oh, I don't know, something easy like Freud."

Far From Heaven director Todd Haynes, in remarks filled with emotion, said that his film had been "graced beyond belief" by Bernstein's music. He said they had talked about collaborating on a film about Sigmund Freud.

So a Freud project is definitely something Haynes has been wanting to do for many years, perhaps even going further back than when he and Elmer Bernstein talked about it. My guess is that this is what the Amazon project will be.

By sheer coincidence I read THE GOLDFINCH last week. I enjoyed it well enough, but I can scarcely imagine it turning into a good film. It's going to be awfully tough to pull a narrative out of that book that's worth making a film out of, especially if it's going to get the Oscar-bait treatment.

Greengrass lending his style to a Breivak-related film sounds pretty repulsive, but I guess it's one less movie I have to see. But then I liked Campos's pointless Christine Chabbuck film from last year, so we'll see!

The director is reteaming with producing partner Andy Starke (Free Fire) on the project after the pair previously collaborated on The Duke Of Burgundy. Starke developed the film in association with Ian Benson at Blue Bear Film and Television and will produce via his production company Rook Films.

In Fabric, also written by Strickland, is set against the backdrop of a busy winter sales period in a department store and follows the life of a cursed dress as it passes from person to person, with devastating consequences.

I'd normally not wish this on any production but I'm a little glad to see this project derailed. Mainly because of Singer's bad rep that no doubt is under some legal microscope now (if not soon), but also because this has felt snake-bitten from the beginning anyway. The internet has continually bemoaned the fact that Sacha Baron Cohen left it, but the real problem was at it's core. Namely that the surviving members (Brian May and Roger Taylor at least, doubt John Deacon has had any major part) have wanted to make it a full on, beginning-to-end story of the band.

I have felt that the real story to tell, that could be more compelling than anything else, is the last few years of Mercury's life. It's assumed that he just withered away and was never heard from again, when in fact he completed 3 albums' worth of material with the band. He threw himself into recording and shooting videos while his body was getting worse. All the while he and the band were being hounded by the British tabloids. I could understand if the surviving members would be iffy about using that period for an entire movie but in the right hands it could be something worth telling.